itch.io

Very short narrative adventure about noticing and exploring the world around you and what that might mean to you. Its simple, but I liked it. Gives me a bit the same vibes as looking at an art work or reading a small poem. 3/5

Another short story, about the origin myth of the viatnamese people, in which a mythical bird and a water dragon king fell in love, made 100 children and split them up to the mountain and the seas as the would never be able to live together, explaining the seafolk and mountainfolk of vietnam. Cute, on point, worth playing. Liked this one as well. 3/5

Now this is a fun multiplayer party game. Frantic, visually appealing, fun and pure chaos. Its unfortunate that it doesnt have more settings to play around with or "maps", but this is surprisingly good and a competent Singleplayer highscore challenge on top. My record is 34, beat me. 3/5

Super Dragonball Smash Brothers and it indeed feels as awesome as it sounds. With a bit more content, stage variations, items (think Towerfall), this could be a HUGE party hit, especially on consoles. As it stands, its still absolutely worth bringing out when you have 1-7 friends over and nuke it out with fire balls, beams, power punches and shield evades. I like this A LOT, but this is the first time in these impressions where I am distracting a sizable amount of points for the sound design, which honestly makes my ears bleed and there is no way to change/adjust the volume of individual aspects. Still, if you are the type to play local MP games on PC with friends, absolutely check this out when you have friends over again. 3/5

The idea of running a cat café is pretty cute, matched by its colorful and fluffy aesthetic. it is an adorable time waster with a lot of good ideas, that unfortuantely never get realized to their full potential. Quests, characters and all game systems are very one dimensional, where the entire game basically only consists of walking around. I still enjoyed exploring its whimsical glitchy world, though and the Animal Crossing style robust Café customization options. 3/5

Relatively simplistic top down survival horror that scores a lot of points for its excellent approach to its "lonely in the dark" mood, where mundane tasks, subdued background noises, hiding&stealth gameplaz and the juxtaposition of simple and clean graphics with heavz and overbearing violence work wonders to create a verz oppressive mood. The combat and gameplay systems seem a bit janky, which to be fair, seems intended in that genre, but its worth checking out if you are in the market for some pixel horror. 3/5

Highscore game with the experimental approach of making a game abourt unusual movement controls. Very successful in that regard and surprisingly enjoyable. Recommended to check out. My record is 10, beat me. Very cool blog article on the matter: https://ninjadodo.itch.io/guppy/dev...ing-unconventional-input-for-natural-movement 3/5

Very torn on this one. Its a line drawing game to practice hand eye coordination and your memory. Probably a better fit for families/kids, but the overall presentation and cute little nods in every spell page are highly charming. Great polish overall, but it is a bit disorienting to need to figure out which direction the more complex /intersecting levels go. Still surprisingly good for what it is. 3/5

Its a relatively standard movement programming game with a high focus o educating and teaching basic programming principles. As a game its not terribly challenging, but I gotta admit that this might be a perfect first game for children to learn those basics. If this was german voiced, I would absolutely give this to my niece to check out. 3/5

I really wanted to like this, but it ended up seeming a bit like an unfinished concept. The idea of balancing a conversation and figuring out the background of your friend or random hitchhikers, while cruising the streets of Italy with a cool soundtrack sounded pretty dope. Unfortunately the gameplay seems a bit lackluster and never really accomplishes that road trip feeling. While the game doesnt fully come together for me, its still cool to check out the concept they were going for here and get to know some of your passengers. 2,5/5

The game is an important insight at the atrocities of war, directly retelling some aspects that people in that area needed to go through in 2014. As such, it has some emotional elements that can be rather impactful and I am glad more people get to play it now. However, as a game, it is admittedly a bit lacking with relatively simple mechanics and quite a few bugs I encountered with missing music, exponentially overlying sound effects and progression bugs. However it is short and I believe playing and seeing what the game wants to say is important so go check it out. 2,5/5

Interactive alphabet that is more directed to very young kids interacting and learning words ... or adults appreciating 10 minutes of some of the finest animations of weird stuff in videogames. I enjoyed seeing the animations morph into more fantastical ideas, but after 10 minutes you should be done and it is not likely to leave a particularly impactful impression. Still, cute toy that is probably better suited as a mobile experience. 2,5/5

Fun little hacking themed minigame, in which you ping the map for possible nodes to hack and then hack those while the defending software isnt nearby. The aesthetics and gameplay are simple, but fit the core game concept and its held together by a hacker story. After I played a few levels, and figured out the main gameplay loop, the game unfortunately didnt add more game concepts in, other than the upgrades you can buy, whicn made it a bit monotonous. 2,5/5

Its mainly a 2 player versus battle with a rather interesting combat mechanic. You are shooting projectiles which ultimately will let you win a round if you hit the other player. However, you dont only try to shoot the other player, but additionally activate lamps for your sides, which will then also shoot bullets for you until your opponent thakes them over again, resulting in a fun little challenging avoiding bullets while setting up the lamps yourself. Its relatively straight forward, but works well, has very nice sprites and background art and a simple highscore singleplayer mode, where you can practice the use of the charge shots and size of hit boxes, even if its clearly not the main focus of the game. Even if it feels a bit simple, its worth looking into for the vs mode. 2,5/5

Math game about swapping cards to get the result 21. Despite it being only a few cards, some of the levels were actually a bit tricky if you werent intending to brute force the solution. Simple, works, even if it could use some more bells and whistles and more ideas for a bit of a more unique game concept. 2,5/5

Its a relatively challenging platformer with a light mechanic that simultaneously works as your health bar and way to illuminate your surroundings. The more jumping power you use and the more damage you take, the smaller your light becomes, making it more difficult to reach the end of each level. The game feels a bit stiff and I dont really like the level design, but its rather interesting how the game organically increases its challenge and gives you an intrinsic motivation to be careful until the very end. Add some cute banter and different endings on top and its a pretty interesting little game that is a bit rough around the edges,, but will find its fans. 2,5/5

Compared to many other games that address transphobia, Boa Retina seems to be a very direct and very personal account of the authors experiences. As a "game" it is incredibly rough around the edges, but its actually more of an art installation giving you a very bleak and honest insight into her futile struggle against the norms and expectations around her.  When the game inevitably ends and juxtaposes that with an intended contrasting end screen message, its very easy to feel like you got to know this one person just a little bit more without ever having met her. I hope she is doing fine these days. Unratable / 5

This is a team based roguelike that is fun to experiment, but will end up annoying many with its design decisions. I technically like its gameplay approach with levels that you can fully destroy, walls to breach, items to find and then fight through. It has a nice foundation but it feels like the game was never balanced to be fun. There isnt a lot of tactical variety, the progression feels father slow, the areas are hard to decipher and you often end up doing something before knowing what you did due to wonky controls and an unpleasant UI. Still might be worth checking out if the genre is your cup of tea. 2,5/5

A visual novel about 4 immigrant kids taking over a bunker and living their lives as they see fit. Besides advancing the story, you can decide how to build out your bunker and how to spend your time. The game apparently also has 12 different "countries" to live in with different backgrounds for the story that affect some story beats, which is a super cool idea. I absolutely applaud the theme and diversity and I am really starting to appreciate Visual Novels that add unique ideas to the base formula and Four Horseman does that. Unfortunately it fails convincing me with the "base" formula with conversations that seem neither believable, likable nor interesting to me. 2,5/5

Adorable visual novels about two girls getting lost in the woods and using that opportunity to talk about what realy matters to them. There arent any alternate endings or a lot of content, but its cute, well written and just a pleasant litte story. 2,5/5

Feeling rather conflicted about this as I love the concept because of my own connection to art but dislike the execution. Its a very unique concept that does deserve a mention. Its an art school "simulator", that gives you semi-random art assignments that might or might not make any sense. It pokes fun at the subjectivity of art by semi randomly judging your works, before you move on to find more tools to draw with. I really like the idea, but the execution is just lacking. An actual AI analyzing works and suggesting feedback would be a really cool touch, but it feels like it turns into a gimmicky joke here with a bit of an annoying presentation and movement controls. Worth checking out if you want to use the game as creative inspiration with limited creative control. Would make for a fun challenge among friends or an art group though. 2,5/5

Wrestling themed brawler/beat em up, which I really, really wanted to like because of its frankly amazing style and presentation. Unfortunately the game doesnt have much content and for a multiplayer game, the main gameplay mechanics as a fighting game feel rather undercooked. I get a bit the impression that the developer has no previous experience with how fighting games and their community ticks, making it feel a bit too shallow. 2,5/5

Labor of love inspired by Crash Bandicoot with many diverse modes and unlockable goodies/permanent abilities for future runs on top of a campaign mode. If this was a bit more polished and on Switch, I could see it being very popular. Only reason I couldnt give it a higher rating was some technical issues I had. Didnt run on 1 PC, encountered some bugs for which I needed to restart and the game performance heavily tanked for me sometimes. 2,5/5

Adventure game and visual novel hybrid where you talk to ghosts about their life and death and then clean the home from any blood to give them the peace to move on. I could imagine both of those ideas working really well, but I kinda got the impression that either wasnt wast deep enough to really make those concepts standout. 2,5/5

Interactive Fiction with a content warning for menstruation related topics. I really like how this particular genre can set up stories and that certainly was an interesting one. It is relatively simple and short, but the writing is on point and the inspiration for the story is intriguing as menstruation is still considered as a bit of a taboo topic in many places. I do recommend playing through both options (10 minutes) if you dont mind the topic at hand. 2,5/5

Its a visual novel, where the content and tone of your answers depend on what type of symbols you match for a angry, sad, joyous etc. response. The core mechanic of this is frankly pretty darn smart. It really feels like giving you more agency on which choice you'll choose as you also need to contemplate how to balance the board for which reactions. The story isnt particularly great and as you can see its not optimized for PC, but I enjoyed playing through the game for its main mechanic alone and I can easily see a more involved Visual Novel using this mechanic. Really, really, really cool. 2,5/5

Collection of 5 small experimental games set to an ambient music album. Some of these have a very intriguing style and concept that could be turned into really deep and fulfilling games, but serve more as a experiential slices here. It is a cool little crossmedia experimental game, but its missing a bit of focus and the experiences are very hit or miss. 2/5

I was funnily enough reminded of Rebop Blasters (also in this bundle) and Rebop is apparently the spiritual successor of Rochambo, which shows in many areas. Rochambo isnt as fun, polished or well thought out as Rebop, as the gameplay systems dont really make a cohesive whole, even if the basic idea and style definitely is there. I found it more tedious than fun, but since Rebop is in the bundle, check that one out if you want a 2 player indie fighter! 2/5

The first game was a flawed, but fun little game that was enjoyable to play around with. Steam Marines 2 unfortunately seems a bit like a step back. The UI is actively hindering the combat, No inventory anymore, the ship interior looks blander, the tactical options are decreased and the general visual indicators in combat are rather lacking. Add on top that I multiple times encountered a boss right at the start of the level which was apparently unbeatable at that time, and the whole game design seems a bit puzzling. Still being worked on, so maybe it can still improve. 2/5

This game has a really good foundation to be a good game with a clean art style, a good mix of roguelike progression, interesting role system and very intuitive and pleasant RTS controls, but... its missing too much. The planets are the same, there is barely any constructions or different strategies and the balancing is a bit off. You just walk around, avoiding enemies to find resources and repeat that on the next planet. Unfortunate. 2/5